Babies and other young children are commonly brought on family shopping trips, so retail stores customarily provide a shopping cart having an integral child seat near the cart handle in the back of the cart. Although convenient, the cleanliness of the child seat has been shown in several studies to be severely lacking. Usually numerous other children have recently used the child seat, often chewing on the surfaces or spilling drinks on the seat or contaminating it with cold or flu viruses, bacteria, and/or dirt. Shoppers inadvertently transfer illness-causing microorganisms to the cart simply by using it for its intended purpose. Additionally, customers not having a child in the cart may place raw meats in the child seat, with the juices dripping onto the seat leaving dangerous (and increasingly antibiotic-resistant) campylobacter, salmonella, or other bacteria.
Likewise, restaurant high chairs may be similarly soiled with germs and food or drink residue. Further, restaurant high chairs are often wooden and worn, raising the possibility of splinters.
In the desire to protect babies and children, numerous washable decorative fabric child seat covers are available. Also, disposable seat covers mimicking the fabric seat covers are available. Both washable and disposable child seat covers have openings for the child's legs and cover all or most of the seat. Often they are particularly formed to fit a single type of seat. Also, it single is inconvenient and time consuming to wash a fabric cover after each use, and, without washing, it remains contaminated from touching the seat. Additionally, it is difficult to remember to bring the freshly washed seat cover for each shopping trip or to restock the diaper bag with more disposable covers. Further, the available disposable covers are not economical and not recyclable. Therefore, it would be advantageous for the retail stores or restaurants to provide a disposable, recyclable seat cover to protect babies, as currently hand sanitizers or disposable bibs are often provided at the store entrance. However, this is not presently feasible due to the cost per conventional disposable seat cover.
Accordingly, there is an established need for a practical, convenient child seat cover adaptable to a variety of seat types and capable of effectively protecting babies and young children from germs, dirt, and splinters, yet inexpensive enough to be provided complimentarily by the retail stores and restaurants.